Dear Mr Event Photographer

[lottiepony]

(Or Mrs)
On the basis I'm a sucker for buying a photo of my horse at any event that I take part in please could you ensure in future that you pick the most impressive looking xc fence as opposed to the smallest. Most likely any xc fence I do will be on the small side but there is always a bigger/scarier looking one on the course and I would prefer if you took photos at this point
Many thanks
The horse owner who keeps you in business as no matter how bad the photo I will buy it!

 

[trickivicki]

true but if he goes for a more simple fence he is more likely to get a nice piccy for everyone

 

[Dunlin]

Having done event photography myself there are a couple of problems with what you say.

Firstly, photographers like a nice picture which means if there's a big fence infront of 4 ice cream trucks or a smaller fence infront of a wood we'll usually go for the wood as a backdrop.

Secondly, I have walked the course and found a nice decent sized fence to make for impressive photo's and then potential customers have complained as they fell off before they got there or they don't want the picture of their horse dripping in sweat with it's veins about to pop.

Thirdly, despite many of us photographers having lenses big enough to photograph Jupiter with, we like fences that allow easy uncrowded access. People always, always ask me why I wasn't photographing the water. Well, the viewing is a long way back from the actual obstacle with limited angles available, the place is crowded with people, getting elbowed means camera shake (blurred pics) and there's always someone with an enormous unruly ponytail which will blow into shot.

I also like to be near a toilet (a bush will suffice) as I drink copious amounts of tea to stay alert through 8 hours of photography. Try it yourself, it's seriously hard work!

 

[AmiRobertson]

Having done event photography myself there are a couple of problems with what you say.

Firstly, photographers like a nice picture which means if there's a big fence infront of 4 ice cream trucks or a smaller fence infront of a wood we'll usually go for the wood as a backdrop.

Secondly, I have walked the course and found a nice decent sized fence to make for impressive photo's and then potential customers have complained as they fell off before they got there or they don't want the picture of their horse dripping in sweat with it's veins about to pop.

Thirdly, despite many of us photographers having lenses big enough to photograph Jupiter with, we like fences that allow easy uncrowded access. People always, always ask me why I wasn't photographing the water. Well, the viewing is a long way back from the actual obstacle with limited angles available, the place is crowded with people, getting elbowed means camera shake (blurred pics) and there's always someone with an enormous unruly ponytail which will blow into shot.

I also like to be near a toilet (a bush will suffice) as I drink copious amounts of tea to stay alert through 8 hours of photography. Try it yourself, it's seriously hard work!

This! I used to photograph sports before moving on to weddings and everything has to be taken into consideration when planning for sports shots. I remember my worst ever job was photographing the London marathon for Bowel Cancer UK and I had to sit on a fence outside embankment to avoid being knocked by spectators for seven hours to pick out the 20 runners for that charity. I had some form of sea sickness afterwards from watching so hard trying to pick out the people with their vest on which was incredibly similar to Battersea dog homes one who had a lot more runner suffice to say I didn't delve into sports photography much further after that. It an incredibly difficult part of my industry although I do like to dip my toes into equestrian stuff occasionally

 

[lottiepony]

Apologies if I offended anyone, was meant to be a light hearted jokey post. I'm well aware of all the points bought up as my dad is a photographer and by no means is it an easy thing to master. And that is why I'll always buy my photo as it really is hard long work esp at winters events so I like to offer my thanks and support apologies again if I offended it wasn't intended

 

[Dunlin]

Don't worry Lottie, I read your post thoroughly and knew it was a jokey one, sorry if my reply was a bit shouty shouty. It's such a hard thing to master, definitely a case of you can't please all the people all of the time.

I am glad you are such a good customer though as I've had so many days where I haven't even covered the cost of petrol, I had a lady who bought photo's at every event I did as she had no-one who was interested to go with her to take photo's or video's. I also know from a riders point of view that photo's of a big event in you and your horses life is a proud moment and it's great to have it captured, even in blurry form

Something I started to do was a VIP package which was to offer my photographic services to 1 rider (or a group together) for half or a whole day. Expensive but you had a photographic timeline of your entire day starting from boxing up and finishing with hopefully a frilly. Many photographers do this but don't advertise it as I never found it massively popular especially since the digital age and anyone can take a great shot with a quality DSLR.

Here's hoping you get some fab photo's this year and if you're ever in Dorset give me a shout

 

[Horse*]

I was once going xc and whilst the photographer got a lovely picture of us jumping the coffin he was standing right in the line for the next jump! I hope he didn't think I was too rude, I feared for both of our lives
I was also the first one in that class so I presumer he had the course wrong.

 

[weebarney]

I remember a photographer at a bsja show took everyone's photo of them jumping a nice spread fence, only problem was the secretary's caravan was right behind the fence not a pretty sight!

 

[spidge]

@Lottiepony, as an event photographer I would sometimes like to write a dear rider letter

It may contain things such as:-

If you have no intention of buying any pictures today ( because your skint/too tight/ way too professional/bought last week/bought last year/already have one over that jump/already have loads of your horse/are jumping cross poles in the novice class when clearly so much more talented/realise your position is crap but feel the need to remind yourself again/ realise your concentration face is sort of a fixture now... shall I go on?) then please do me some favours :

Don't clog up my sales stand for twenty minutes waffling on and on in a loud boring voice then tell me your aren't going to buy today when other customers who want to buy wait patiently for you to prattle to a halt.

Don't end your 20 minute viewing and conversation by asking for a card with the web site address because you just can't decide and are going to buy online -we both know your not being totally honest,

If all you want to do is look at your pictures, please go home and do it on the internet, if you aren't going to buy then why are you even looking...? Or do it in the office and bore your work colleagues rather than me about how epic you are ( or not )

If you are going going to like my Facebook page or add me as a friend, please make sure you have removed the watermarked pictures of ours you screenprinted and now use as your FB profile.

I could go on but I fear my 20 minutes are nearly up xxx

@Lottiepony, choosing the right jump is a black art.

 

[Roasted Chestnuts]

Lol I was expecting this to be a 'I decked it due to you popping out' thread, nearly had that a few times wehn Pony has locked on to protog rather than fence

Must be a nightmare trying to please everyone!!

 

[SpruceRI]

@Lottiepony, as an event photographer I would sometimes like to write a dear rider letter

It may contain things such as:-

If you have no intention of buying any pictures today ( because your skint/too tight/ way too professional/bought last week/bought last year/already have one over that jump/already have loads of your horse/are jumping cross poles in the novice class when clearly so much more talented/realise your position is crap but feel the need to remind yourself again/ realise your concentration face is sort of a fixture now... shall I go on?) then please do me some favours :

Don't clog up my sales stand for twenty minutes waffling on and on in a loud boring voice then tell me your aren't going to buy today when other customers who want to buy wait patiently for you to prattle to a halt.

Don't end your 20 minute viewing and conversation by asking for a card with the web site address because you just can't decide and are going to buy online -we both know your not being totally honest,

If all you want to do is look at your pictures, please go home and do it on the internet, if you aren't going to buy then why are you even looking...? Or do it in the office and bore your work colleagues rather than me about how epic you are ( or not )

If you are going going to like my Facebook page or add me as a friend, please make sure you have removed the watermarked pictures of ours you screenprinted and now use as your FB profile.

I could go on but I fear my 20 minutes are nearly up xxx

@Lottiepony, choosing the right jump is a black art.

Blimey...

 

[marmalade76]

If you are going going to like my Facebook page or add me as a friend, please make sure you have removed the watermarked pictures of ours you screenprinted and now use as your FB profile.

Had to lol at that one!

Have to admit that I do agree with the OP, at some of the hunter trials I've done the tog has been on the smallest and most uninteresting fence on the course! We do have a lovely local tog who dresses up a fence on fun rides, adds a couple of little trees in pots, wings, that sort of thing which is much appreciated (I have bought many a pic from him over the years ).

Have to admit that I rarely buy on the day as I don't usually have enough money on me and don't tend to carry cards or cheque books to events (don't really want to run the risk of them getting lost or stolen) and as I have a house full of pics already they have to be pretty good for me to buy. I would, of course, like to buy them all (providing I didn't look too awful in them) but my husband wouldn't be too happy if I did Jpegs are a different matter as I can hide them from him so I will buy several of those if reasonably priced

 

[mrussell]

My biggest grumble is that (like the service provided at Burnham Market on Thursday), the pictures arent available by the time you need to go and the website is only showing pictures up to Oct 2012 with no new folder ready for 2013. There is no mention of when the photos will be online either (even just a note on the website would be good).

On the other hand, companies like http://www.eventsphotos.co.uk/ have them online by the time youve got in your front door !

 

[PolarSkye]

I will start by saying that good event photographers are worth their weight in gold and do a fab (and sometimes thankless) job . . . BUT

. . . some are absolutely shocking. My current favourite is the tog who positioned him/herself on the wrong side of the final fence at a team chase so that picture consisted of four horses' bottoms . . . and, no, it wasn't remotely cute or arty

 

[Twizzel]

My biggest grumble is that (like the service provided at Burnham Market on Thursday), the pictures arent available by the time you need to go and the website is only showing pictures up to Oct 2012 with no new folder ready for 2013. There is no mention of when the photos will be online either (even just a note on the website would be good).

On the other hand, companies like http://www.eventsphotos.co.uk/ have them online by the time youve got in your front door !

Most togs with any sense will get them online the evening of the event, or if it's a huge event within a couple of days of it finishing. I've taken on a lot of work this year that used to be covered by another event tog down here who seems to have given up the ghost- last season some of his events never even made it onto the website, and his 'stand' never was manned at an event! Cue lots of angry competitors...

R.e. fence choice- we also try to swap fences as a lot of togs will pick the same fence, so add a bit of variety and cover a fence that's not normally photographed. And we like to put a tog at the beginning of the course, just in case you don't make it all the way round

We offer the jpeg option on the website, seems to go down well (but just do 9x6 prints on the day )

 

[spidge]

Two years ago we covered the Hickstead Derby show as the official event photographers for the first time which I can assure you was a huge learning curve. By the end of the week we had to load around 50 000 images onto our web galleries. The demand to see the pictures when they went online the day after the show was such that our gallery hosting companies servers were effectively taken off line within hours due to the bandwidth used. Having spent hours uploading the images I then had to remove these entirely and reload into separate galleries for each day. Lessons learnt.

Historically we have almost invariably loaded all galleries the same day even when we have covered 4 events at different venues. Plenty of late nights sat in front of the pc! We have streamlined our workflow to either walk off site with the images already online or available fairly shortly afterwards. The speeds I have seen recently from my new broadband line make the job so much easier, loading 10 000 images shouldn't take much more than half an hour now.

 

[Twizzel]

Two years ago we covered the Hickstead Derby show as the official event photographers for the first time which I can assure you was a huge learning curve. By the end of the week we had to load around 50 000 images onto our web galleries. The demand to see the pictures when they went online the day after the show was such that our gallery hosting companies servers were effectively taken off line within hours due to the bandwidth used. Having spent hours uploading the images I then had to remove these entirely and reload into separate galleries for each day. Lessons learnt.

Historically we have almost invariably loaded all galleries the same day even when we have covered 4 events at different venues. Plenty of late nights sat in front of the pc! We have streamlined our workflow to either walk off site with the images already online or available fairly shortly afterwards. The speeds I have seen recently from my new broadband line make the job so much easier, loading 10 000 images shouldn't take much more than half an hour now.

I wish I had superfast broadband in the depths of Cornwall!

 

[WelshD]

It may just be me but I can't help but think I'd like a pic with four ice cream vans in the background lol